services, escheats, &c., which it before yielded. In this Roll, the land in Michelham, and the marsh in "Heilesham," are stated to be each eighty acres, and the "wood of Pevense" is valued at 38s. rent.
These gifts were farther confirmed by Henry III, in the sixteenth year of his reign, in two charters; one dated at "Windlesore" (Windsor), on the 8th of January, the other at "Lameth" (Lambeth), January 20th, and both by the hand of Ralph, Bishop of Chichester, his chancellor.[1]
By a third charter, passed under the great seal by the same chancellor, he grants the canons freedom, for their manors of Michelham and Chintinges, "from shires and hundreds, suits of shires and hundreds, and from sheriff's aid," i.e. he exonerates them from the duty of attending or performing any services at the county or hundred courts, and also from the customary payments to the sheriff towards defraying his expenses in keeping the peace.
The whole of these documents are again recited and confirmed by his grandson, Edward II, in a deed given under his own hand at Westminster, November 20th, in the fourteenth year of his reign (a.d. 1320), wherein this king also ratifies the benefactions of several later donors.
These repeated confirmations were rendered necessary by the insecurity of the original grants, arising from the nature of the feudal tenure. The things granted were liable by forfeiture to revert to the lord of the fee—in this instance the king, of whom de Aquila held his estate "in capite." Notwithstanding, therefore, the founder bestowed his charity "in perpetuam elemosinam," and bound his heirs as well as himself, yet to give permanency to the endowment the consent of the crown was requisite. Subsequent royal confirmations gave additional strength to rights previously attained, and in times of so much disorder and violence as under our early Norman kings, every possible security must have been desirable; besides which they were needed to give validity to grants not included in former confirmatory charters. The earlier documents are usually recited in them at length, and then the new gifts are
- ↑ This Ralph de Neville in 1233 had the unique good fortune to enjoy at the same time the Chancellorships both of England and Ireland, of which also he succeeded in obtaining a grant for life; he was afterwards Bishop of Winchester. Vide Lives of the Chancellors, vol. i, p. 129.—Suss. Arch. Collections. III, 36.
